By Joan Ruddiman
Amanda Eyre Ward is a new author who is coming on strong. Critics note her ability to create characters in conflict that elicit empathy in plots that demand attention to the last page.
Her first novel “Sleep Toward Heaven” (MacAdam/Cage Publishers, 2003), established Ms. Ward as a novelist.
Sandra Bullock and Warner Brothers bought the rights to this one.
“How to be Lost” (Ballantine Books, 2005) is optioned for film and the screenplay is in the works.
Ms. Ward’s novels explore human responses to loss and the aftermath, most specifically the act of forgiveness. In her third novel, the theme is overt.
The title — “Forgive Me” (Random House, 2007) — telegraphs Ms. Ward’s intent to frame a plot around how people come to forgive the wrongs done against them, but also how they find self-forgiveness of the wrongs they have committed against others.
Unprovoked murder, the theme of her first novel, and a child stolen from her family — in “How to be Lost” — are horrible acts, difficult to forgive. In “Forgive Me,” Ms. Ward centers the plot within the horrors of South Africa’s apartheid world of the 1980s. She spares no feelýPage=011 Column=001 OK,0002.08þ
ings in graphically describing horrific acts of violence and inhuman cruelty of whites against blacks, blacks against whites and blacks against blacks.
The reader follows the protagonist Nadine Morgan, a journalist, into the world of blacks who are subjected to physical assault and emotional humiliation daily. Can we understand how a teenage girl could vent her life of frustration and pain by bashing a rock into a man’s skull? Nadine believes it is her calling to find the answer — and write it for a page one exclusive.
A decade later, Nadine is exploring the same story, this time from the perspective of the young man’s parents. Jason Irving was an idealistic kid from Nantucket who went to South Africa to help make it a better place. He was there to work for black independence when he was randomly targeted for death because he was white.
Years after the inhuman acts of murder and torture that ultimately led to the end of apartheid, South Africa attempts to end the bitterness that stagnates the country. Nadine, following the Irvings, witnesses the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings that allow the families of victims to confront those who have been in jail for the violent crimes.
A word of forgiveness ensures amnesty for those who in another time behaved like monsters.
Ms. Ward is rightfully praised for her novels that tackle such complex human emotions as she works through what it means to forgive — for those who are forgiven as well as for those who do the forgiving.
“Forgive Me” is indeed a page-turner. Ms. Ward moves the story back and forth through the eras of Nadine’s life as we follow Nadine on her journey of self-discovery. However, it is hard to enjoy a novel when the protagonist is so unlikable. Nadine is a self-consumed 35-year-old who thrives on the dangers of being a reporter on the front lines of horror and then wonders why everyone around her thinks she is insane.
Nadine also is good at leaving those she loves — or claims to love — to “get the story.” Best friend Lily from the little fishing community on Cape Cod makes a trip to London at Nadine’s request. Then Nadine ditches her little country mouse of a friend in the big city for three days as she chases a story.
“But it could be page one!” Nadine says, fully expecting Lily to understand why she was left to wander alone through London’s sites.
Nadine leaves love-of-her-life Maxim in a hospital bed and later runs from the unbelievably perfect Hank Duarte — always in pursuit of a story.
Ms. Ward does offer some exposition to soften Nadine. Her mother died of cancer when she was a child. Her father, distraught in losing his beloved wife, is withdrawn. Nadine is smarter than the average kid from Woods Hole and works to make the life she has dreamed of at Harvard and beyond.
But these are mere hints at Nadine’s psyche, which could have been more richly developed. In one scene, Nadine climbs into the turret of her childhood home where her mother’s books are stored. She picks up a well-worn book by Nadine Gordimer, her mother’s favorite author who is Nadine’s namesake.
Why was her mother, a Cape Cod girl who never ventured farther than Boston, reading the noted South African activist? Ms. Gordimer, as Ms. Ward the lit major would know, won a Noble Prize in literature, was a member of the outlawed African National Congress, was an advocate for Nelson Mandela’s release and indeed was the first person he asked to see when he left his island prison.
Did the fact that Nadine’s mother read Ms. Gordimer influence Nadine to go to South Africa? That fascinating connection is never developed.
Even more disappointing is that Ms. Ward misses the truly haunting story of South Africa as her novel gets tied up in a time warp of Nadine’s past, present and future angst.
For those who are willing to re-enter the twisted world of apartheid South Africa, look to one of the first who dared to put the conflict on the world’s stage.
Ms. Gordimer’s “The Lying Days” (1953) was her first novel, in large part her story as a white girl struggling against her people’s injustices against blacks. In 1951, the New Yorker published “A Watcher of the Dead,” the first of many short stories of their long association. Her efforts on behalf of all citizens in her country are evident today.
Now 83 years old, Ms. Gordimer in an interview with the Wall Street Journal recently “marvels at the post-apartheid life.”
Working still as an activist against the HIV/AIDS epidemic in her country and throughout the continent, Ms. Gordimer looks back on how South Africa pulled itself out of the quagmire of apartheid without a full-blown civil war.
She acknowledges that “patience and forgiveness” are character traits of her country. Particularly, she says, “the blacks in this country,” who she says had “nationalism as a sense of self” that allowed them to save the country from civil war.
It was, she says, “a very remarkably astute and human way of looking at a terrible situation.”
Another novel that rises to the level of its subject’s drama is “The Power of One” (Random House, first American edition, 1988). Though the film — “The Power of One” — starring Morgan Freeman got great reviews and is still a popular video, readers who know the film say that the Bryce Courtenay novel is more memorable.
For those who wish to share this classic coming-of-age story with children, look for Mr. Courtenay’s children’s version — “The Power of One” (Penquin Books, 1999).
Many kids will empathize with Young Peekay who is on the wrong side of everything. He speaks English in the land of Afrikaans and, as a white child, is devoted to his nanny who is a black woman. Readers cheer when this little, bullied boy comes of age as he learns “small can beat big. “ Peekay is a mighty hero as he fights injustice in his world in his way.
To her credit, Ms. Ward broached a most complex and emotionally wrenching subject in her novel “Forgive Me.” Unfortunately, the story line with silly Nadine finding her way (she is such a slow study) detracts from the powerful truths she finds in post-apartheid South Africa.
For a more serious and entertaining reading experience, look for Nadine Gordimer’s work or any version of “The Power of One” by Bryce Courtenay.
These authors convey how forgiveness in the truest sense can transform the world.
Joan Ruddiman, Ed.D., is a teacher and friend of the Allentown Public Library.
